Laurence Stephen Lowry R.A.

(British, 1887-1976)

Children walking 9 x 16.7 cm. (3 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
The Artist, by whom gifted to
The Hon. Helen Sutcliffe, thence by descent to the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

The present work was gifted by Lowry to a young Helen Sutcliffe on the occasion of a studio visit accompanied by her father, Lord Rhodes of Saddleworth (see lot 53). Rhodes was both Lowry's local MP and an important patron for the artist. He was the first owner of Lowry's celebrated Going to the Match (1953) and several further oils including A Political Meeting (1953) which depicts Rhodes in action.

Writing in 1983, Rhodes recalled a particularly entertaining L.S. Lowry tale as follows:

"I was approached by Lord Harry Walston one day in the House of Lords who asked me if I ever saw L.S. Lowry, the artist. He said that he and a few of his friends would like to approach him to see if he would accept an honour."

"I told him he lived at Mottram only about five miles from my home and I would go round to find out, if he thought it was a good idea. He said it was. I had two other matters to see Lowry about myself. One was an idea I had for a large bowl to be painted by him which would be a permanent feature of the archives belonging to the Saddleworth Festival of Arts. I had a word with Arthur Bryant, head of Wedgwood, to see if he thought it was a practical proposition. He was absolutely thrilled with the idea and said they would go to no end of trouble to see that it was properly made and treated as it would probably be referred to as one of their triumphs in ceramics."

"Another thing I wanted to ask Lowry about was the impending visit of the Queen to Manchester, which I had arranged. It was the desire of many councillors, aldermen and officials that Lowry should be present and they had asked me to persuade him to come to the Town Hall when she came."

"So one Monday morning I presented myself at Lowry's house in Mottram; a small gaunt-looking detached house as black as any mill he had painted, window frames nearly gone with rot. The path up to the door nearly had you on your back. I rang the front doorbell and before long I heard the removal of the most elaborate set of safety precautions – bolts, chains and locks. He opened the door and soon I was sitting with him while he ate his breakfast which he had prepared himself. He sat at a table which was piled up with books, papers and sketches, with just one small space in a corner of it cleared for his egg and bacon."

"I told him of Lord Walston's request and said that a group of peers had asked me to see him as to whether he would accept an honour or not. "What had you got in mind?" he asked. I said a C.H. or Order of Merit was what they had in mind. He said how interesting this was, and most kind of them. I said I supposed it was not the first time he had been approached and he said he had refused an MBE, CBE and a Knighthood, but that he thought the idea of a CH was most interesting. I thought the idea was becoming acceptable to him so I asked if I could tell the peers that he was prepared to let his name go forward. Very quickly he said, "Oh no, I couldn't do that, I don't want one."

"So I then told him my idea about the bowl. He was very thrilled with the idea and said he had always wanted to paint a bowl. He thought it was an absolutely splendid idea but when I came to the point he didn't want to know. He said he had stopped painting altogether."

"Thinking it might be third time lucky, I mentioned the forthcoming visit of the Queen and told him of the request that he should be at the Town Hall. Again it was, "How interesting, how kind, how nice of them". But when I asked if I could go ahead with the arrangements I got the same reply, "Oh no, I don't want to come, I don't want to meet anyone like that. Oh no!"